INLSA

Work has started on the controversial toll plaza on Chapmans Peak Drive, despite continued protests and objections by some groups and residents. Photo: David Ritchie

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Construction on the new toll plaza on Chapman’s Peak Drive has begun, and Transport and Public Works MEC Robin Carlisle says he expects it to be operational by Easter next year.

Work on the highly controversial project began on Monday despite numerous protests by various groups and residents.

The Hout Bay Residents’ Association met its lawyers late on Monday to discuss possible interdict action.

Chairman Len Swimmer confirmed they had discussed the matter with their attorneys and senior and junior counsel and were now waiting for their opinion.

“There’s a lot to take into consideration and we need more certainty. It’s a very tricky situation – that’s the reality,” he said Tuesday morning.

“They (the province) are going to throw everything at us in their defence and they have no shortage of taxpayers’ money.”

Some residents made a last-minute appeal to Western Cape Premier Helen Zille to stop the work, but Carlisle said concession holder Entilini had been given the go-ahead last week.

“We had expected construction to have started as soon as the construction holiday was over, but there were legal issues to address,” he said.

The Civil Rights Action Group (Crag), one of the groups opposing the toll plaza, held a press conference at Chapman’s Peak on Monday, accusing the province of refusing to meet it.

Crag co-ordinator Terry Wyner said they wanted the province to explain the need for a tolling system and office space on the mountain, and to explain why it was “rushing”.

“We are dead against having to pay to walk on the mountain. If tolling is really necessary why are they using 20- to 30-year-old technology that will affect the mountain badly?” he asked.

Carlisle dismissed the group’s objections and its claims that he had refused to meet them.

“We’re always happy to talk to anyone.”

He insisted on Monday that everyone would still have access to the mountain and that the free day pass would remain.

“If you are on a bicycle, or walking, you can walk where you will, but you may not walk from the top of Chappies downwards because it’s very dangerous.

“If you wish to picnic or climb anywhere on Hout Bay side, now and in the future, you will get a day pass which costs you nothing,” Carlisle said.

In an e-mail on Monday, Crag appeared to be resigned to construction of the toll plaza.

“After many, many years of battle, it looks as though the public’s fight to save the natural beauty of Chapman’s Peak Drive is about to be defeated... Please help us expose this act of gross bureaucratic power gone wrong.”

The group appealed to Zille to intervene “in a last-ditch effort to get the provincial government of the Western Cape to see sanity prevail”.

Meanwhile, prominent anti-toll road campaigner Keith Fawcett has accused Zille of “misleading the public” and of “not applying her mind” in a statement that she had made last week defending the project.

Fawcett, who has monitored the project from the outset and accumulated a wealth of documentation – including contracts and some traffic figures – sent out a detailed rebuttal of points in Zille’s response document.

He noted Zille’s comments that the EIA (environmental impact assessment), approved on appeal by the then minister of Environmental Affairs an Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk, had “considered all three possible locations for the control centre, which were all within what is now Table Mountain National Park”.

But Fawcett said the current proposed toll plaza had never been part of the EIA and public participation process, and that the first “fully public” sight of the plans and concept drawings had been on January 22 this year.

“It is most unfortunate that the Ministry of Transport and Public Works chose to use the 2003 site plan and cross-section of a five-lane toll plaza which was not part of either Records of Decision for this project,” he said.

In her response document, Zille said toll road operator Entilini had confirmed that it had not refused to release recent traffic data for Chapman’s Peak Drive, and that requests for data could also be submitted through Carlisle’s ministry.

But Fawcett, who was previously threatened with legal action by the province – when it was still an ANC-led administration – if he revealed toll traffic data, said Zille’s statement was “completely incorrect”. He provided correspondence to back his argument.

“There is absolutely no doubt that (this) correspondence conclusively proves that Entilini has refused to release recent traffic data as requested by (me).”

Community leader David Isaacs said the new toll plaza would threaten the livelihood of Hout Bay’s fishermen.

“We are a fishing village, we live off the sea. Our fishermen are using this road to go to sea, they can’t afford these fees. How must they survive?” he asked.

Carlisle said he sympathised with the fishermen, but maintained that tolling was necessary.

“If I don’t toll that road, there’ll be insufficient money to keep it safe, and that is my responsibility,” he said.

“I am not prepared to do anything that makes that road more dangerous than it is.

“We cannot keep Chappies safe unless we toll it. If we don’t toll it, we must close it.”

john.yeld@inl.co.za

sibongakonke.mama@inl.co.za - Cape Argus